By Nury Vittachi

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Beware of this drink

GOTCHA. THE VITAMIN Water people last week admitted their “healthy” product was tap water and chemicals with no significant health benefits. I knew it.

When the product was launched in Asia, this column said the expensive designer drink was identical to the bottles of colored sugar water sold on Asian streets in the 1960s.

Health campaigners in the US noticed the same thing and sued the makers. Lawyers for the firm, a division of Coca-Cola, last week finally admitted it was not a health drink, but denied misleading anyone.

Their statement said:

“No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitamin Water was a healthy beverage.”

Yes, all those expensive billboards of sports stars were erected by accident.

This is the dark side of capitalism: companies preying on consumer stupidity.

Luckily, this is offset by firms such as PG Music. This columnist, who is too stupid to navigate the list of discounts for regular customers on their site, last week paid full price for expensive software.

Meaghan from PG Music emailed me to say that they had noticed I was a repeat buyer and were sending me what I had ordered PLUS half my money back. Amazing.

(PG Music software)

We consumers are stupid. It’s a fact. Consider the labels we need.

Coffee these days comes in paper cups with a warning:

“CAUTION: HOT DRINKS ARE HOT.”

Jars of nuts now have signs saying:

“Warning: May contain nuts.”

Plastic airline snack packs say:

“Open before consuming.”

A bit more distressing example was the laser pointer which came with this warning:

“Do not look into laser with remaining eye.”

Ouch.

***

SO, DRUGGIE sports star Lance Armstrong wants to apologize to everyone he lied to. By my calculations, that’s seven billion people. Is he going to do us all personally? I want him on his knees licking the carpet. Tell him to call my secretary.

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THERE’S AN outcry just now over a US guy called Bob who secretly outsourced his job to staff in Shenyang, China. This is shocking. If everyone in the world’s biggest economy did that, jobs and money would eventually be evenly spread and Planet Earth would become a happy, healthy, united place. We can’t have that.

***

THIS COLUMNIST wrote to Zuji, one of Asia’s biggest online travel agents, to change the date of a flight to London. Zuji staff member Carlyne Sarinas replied that tickets were not changeable so they would be keeping my money and I HAD to travel on January 17. She wrote this to me on January 18. Great, let me just pick up a time machine.

Still, I always thought of Twitter as useless, but if you can use it to abuse tycoons, it’s starting to look like a good and worthwhile service. ***

PRESIDENT OBAMA said this week that he wants to find a "pathway for citizenship" for immigrants in the United States. So, US dockyards are getting a new gate, labeled “Containers in which Asian immigrants are hiding”?

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BUSY DAY – It’s 8.41 and I have already re-written a 10-page proposal for a colleague, put up this post, and now have to zip over to Cyberport (in Hong Kong island) for a meeting. If you’re in the vicinity, come and say hi – I will be at the Meridian hotel.